Getting shot of the mortgage sooner than 2049!

KajiKita

Well done for the mouldy window cleaning! 👏😊
I’ve cleaned out our cellar fridge which was starting to evolve into a similar state! 😳 I’ve never seen a fridge with black mould on the shelves before 🤷‍♀️ Perhaps it’s because it lives in the cellar?

Big win on getting the books to Oxfam! 👏👏👏 I have three big bags that have been lurking in the conservatory, looking at me, for weeks now ….. I really should get them shifted before Christmas!

KK

Bluegreen143

Bluegreen143 said:

Today’s plan

✔️ Clean upstairs windows and windowsills with mould cleaner 

✔️ Take Monkey to football

✔️ While he’s at football, take all the bags of books to the Oxfam bookshop 

✔️ Drop kids at MIL’s for lunch 

✔️ Go to a children’s toy/game/book charity shop we know of, to bulk out their Christmas presents 

✔️ Take Monkey to a birthday party (Red will take Bambi home; my friend (also Monkey’s best friend’s mum) is taking Monkey and I home after the party 

✔️ Get all the Christmas decorations out of the loft (I know it’s early to decorate, but we want it done before Monkey’s birthday party next weekend)

🔲 Finish up hoovering etc so it’s really tidy for decorating 

🔲 Phone my papa 

✔️ My sister and her husband are coming over for a drink tonight which is nice  🙂

Not bad on yesterday’s list! Had lots of fun with my sister and her husband last night. Though we didn’t get to bed til 1.30am so I may need a power nap later 😂 

Spent £44.50 n the charity shop yesterday, got some really good stuff - four Roald Dahl books in mint condition for £1 each, a paw patrol thing Bambi doesn’t have, an unused “make a volcano” set for Monkey etc, a couple of stuffed animals for Bambi (including an Olaf, she’s obsessed with Frozen!) and some other bits.

Even better, when we opened the car boot to put the bag in, I saw that there was a bag of decluttered toys & a baby sling in there which I’d tried to donate to our local charity shop but they weren’t accepting donations. I’d forgotten about them so felt good to run back into the shop and get rid 🙂

Also spent £7.70 in greggs, Red & I had lunch from there while we were out. 

Bought a £40 Boots gift card from MIL for £30. I didn’t actually want it as I never shop in boots but I realised she was determined to sell it to us and I wanted to keep the peace 🙈 she can be extremely negative and has major victim mindset. 

She’s been moaning about this gift card all year, she got it last Christmas and thinks “it was really unkind” of the person to give it to her as she was on crutches at the time and couldn’t go shopping 😱 honestly, she has no idea how rude/ungrateful she comes across. Then she got in a dig about Red hasn’t taken her in the car and if she went to Boots in a taxi it would cost more than the voucher. So you see why I had to buy the stupid thing off her to keep the peace 😂

I mean, Boots deliver so she could have ordered something, and she also has a pair of legs and buses to catch but she would rather sit at home and moan that she can’t use the voucher 🤷‍♀️ 

Today’s list

🔲 Phone Papa

🔲 Do 2x washings & get clothes away

🔲 Decorate for Christmas! 

🔲 Tidy garden with kids

🔲 Bake something for school snacks 

🔲 Hoover everywhere 

🔲 Watch the Muppet’s Christmas Carol with the kids

KajiKita

Your MiL sounds like rather hard work ….. 😉

Excellent news on the charity shop finds 😊 Enjoy the decorating and the Power Nap! 

KK

Baileys_Babe

From memory Red has siblings, we're none of them also "responsible' (in MIL's eyes) for being her taxi?

Decorating the tree and watching Muppets Christmas Carol seem like wonderful ways to celebrate the first Sunday in advent 🎄

fionaandphil

@Bluegreen143 it might be worth looking online at Boots this weekend, they have some quite good deals on for Black Friday.  We managed to stack a few deals and got an electric toothbrush for DS and also some headphones for a friends child.  

Bluegreen143

Baileys_Babe said:

From memory Red has siblings, we're none of them also "responsible' (in MIL's eyes) for being her taxi?

Decorating the tree and watching Muppets Christmas Carol seem like wonderful ways to celebrate the first Sunday in advent 🎄

Most of his siblings are his dad’s kids, he was married before. So Red’s mum was their stepmum, but they’ve had not much relationship with her since his dad died. I think she’s also annoyed with his other brother about not giving her a lift to the shop too 😆 

Decorating is going well but the house is totally upside down 🙈😂 

Baileys_Babe

At least MIL is annoyed at both her sons, not just Red. I can understand her stepchildren not having much to do with such a negative person.

I feel like our house has been in chaos for months. We would like to get on top of it but we have arranged to visit various friends and relations for 6 or the next 12 days 🤦‍♀️ as well as fit in work and all our normal activities. I think it is us running away from the problem and procrastinating, but it will be good to meet up with these people.

I've made a meal plan for most of this coming fortnight. I won't need to buy much except milk, fruit, vegetables and a bag of lentils.

KajiKita

@Baileys_Babe I find this time of year gets crazy-hectic with seeing people, social commitments etc. I think we’ve just all forgotten because of covid! 😉

We are facing similar levels of chaos and clutter here, so I am setting myself the task of clearing one small area per evening, or even just one item, if ‘putting it away’ requires Jenga-style reorganisation and restructuring of the storage space! 😂 It won’t make it perfect, or even close, but I am hoping by the time I do actually get to ‘tidying’ as a more concerted effort, some of the thinking will already have been done, even if subconsciously from just drifting past / through all the ‘stuff’ IYSWIM. 

KK

Baileys_Babe

@KajiKita thanks for reminding me any progress is better than none even if it is only one or two things.

All. of our visiting involves driving for a couple of hours. So long days avoiding the mess we call home.

Bluegreen143

Bluegreen143 said:

Today’s list

✔️ Phone Papa

✔️ Do 2x washings & get clothes away (sort of, I did one!)

✔️ Decorate for Christmas! 

✔️ Tidy garden with kids

🔲 Bake something for school snacks 

✔️ Hoover everywhere 

✔️ Watch the Muppet’s Christmas Carol with the kids

Fairly successful day yesterday! Keep not having time to bake so I’ve ordered more cereal bars in the Tesco shop. I’m not convinced home baking muffins/flapjacks is cheaper than own brand cereal bars anyway but I do feel better about what’s in them, and they are tastier 🤷‍♀️

Started to feel a bit 😱 about Monkey’s birthday party on Sunday, as I feel I’m so behind with planning. I do have his presents at least and have booked a Tesco order on Saturday to get food and balloons etc. The lesson I’ve learned is to not choose a theme, we decided on a Lego theme party but it’s so expensive for the themed stuff!

So we have agreed that a bunch of 6/7 year olds (he’s turning 7 but is the oldest of his friends I think) don’t care about themed plates anyway and we’d rather spend our budget on a couple of great activities (a treasure hunt, pinyata, stuff for pass the parcel and Red has ordered little foam planes and wants them to all compete to get the furthest 😆). So will just order paper plates & cups from Tesco. I will try to find time this week to make Lego bunting as it’s quite easy to do, and I think if I get balloons in bright primary colours it’ll look good. We are going to put lots of loose Lego in the pinyata, as well as sweets, so it’s a surprise when it bursts and they see bricks everywhere 😂

Party bags are, I think, way OTT nowadays so they will get cake, the stuff (Lego bricks/sweets/chocolate coins) they collect in the pinyata and treasure hunt and maybe that’s enough if I pop it all in nice bags for them?! Maybe a sheet of stickers or tattoos too? 🤷‍♀️

Actually I’m now thinking, instead of a shower of loose Lego, do I get little cellophane cones and twist it up
into cones of Lego and make that the treasure in the treasure hunt?